After showing all season that they were the cream of the crop in the MCAL, the Branson School and Redwood High girls volleyball teams each earned a No. 1 seed for the North Coast Section tournament on Sunday. The playoffs begin Wednesday.

Branson, the MCAL regular-season and playoffs champions, will look to defend its NCS Division V title as the No. 1 seed as the Bulls begin a journey which they hope will end with a fourth consecutive state title. Redwood, which was second in both the MCAL regular season and playoffs, also will be a No. 1 seed as the Giants seek to defend their NCS Division II title.

The NCS playoff fields will also include four other Marin County teams. Novato and Drake are seeded fifth and eighth, respectively, in Division III; Marin Catholic is a No. 3 seed in Division IV, and Bay Counties League West champion Marin Academy is No. 4 in Division V. Complete brackets are available online at www.cifncs.org/sports/volleyball.

For Branson (35-3), the 2012 season marks the fifth in a row that the Bulls have been the No. 1 seed in the NCS playoffs. The Bulls will have a first-round bye before facing No. 8 Valley Christian or No. 9 Bay on Saturday at the College of Marin.

Redwood (31-8), a No. 1 seed for the first time since 2006, also received a first-round bye. The Giants will host No. 8 Newark Memorial or No. 9 Montgomery on Saturday.

"We're very excited," Redwood coach Katie Pease said. "I think they took our strength of schedule into consideration. Seven of our losses were to pretty key teams and we had some huge wins this year. So I think the big wins in some of our tournaments really helped us."

Girls tennis

The Branson School and Tam High girls tennis teams, which each earned NCS championships last season, earned a No. 1 and No. 2 seed, respectively, for the 2012 NCS playoffs which begin Tuesday.

Branson, which won in Division II last year as the No. 2 seed, will try to repeat in the same division. Tam, which won the Division II title in 2010 before claiming the Division I title in 2011, is again in Division I. The Red-tailed Hawks are the No. 2 seed behind Monte Vista. Redwood also qualified for the postseason, earning the No. 6 seed in Division II.

Branson, as the MCAL champion and No. 1 seed, will play all its matches on its courts at College of Marin. If the seeds hold, the Bulls would face Piedmont in the finals for the second consecutive year.

"It's nice being the first seed," said Branson coach Jenno Morson, who noted that he has not seen any of the other seven teams in the Division II field in action. "There's always pressure on you, but we earned it, so it's great. "... And (being at home) does help a little bit. We went to Piedmont last year and the environment and setting does help a lot. It's not just the environment, but also being at your home field."

Tam would have been sent on the road had it been paired with a league champion for its first match, but would be instead be home for its first two matches.

"When we lost to Branson (in the MCAL finals), I was a little concerned that we would drop out of the top four (in the NCS)," Tam coach Bill Washauer said. "I did find out how things went over in the EBAL where Monte Vista is and it turns out all those teams beat each other up except Monte Vista. So that saved our bacon, basically. And we're very fortunate not to have gotten the No. 1 seed because if we had we'd have been going to Eureka."